


90% of the major events in keith's life are to be categorized as "bad"

by RedFez



Series: what goes around, comes around [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Gen, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Minor Character Death, No Dialogue, Pre-Relationship, Soulmates, i guess??, i mean there is but also..... not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 07:52:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8154736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedFez/pseuds/RedFez
Summary: The universe almost definitely owes him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> me: *rubs my slimy aromantic af hands all over a soulmate au*
> 
> Prequel/backstory to that klance soulmate au I posted a day or two ago! Once again, unbetaed and mostly unedited. Enjoy.

For as long as Keith could remember, he'd had the words "Nope. No, you - no, no, no." on his right side. He didn't think much of it, considering most people had similar marks - though he hadn't ever met someone else whose mark showed such distaste from the get-go.

But he buried all of the insecurity that came along with that deep down inside himself. That and the fact that, after his mother had died, he was left with no one. His mother hadn't had any living relatives, and his father couldn't be found. Which stung and added to the insecurity, but his parents hadn't been soulmates.

His mother didn't have one at all, being one of the ones who were markless - and she had always claimed to be content with that. She said she didn't ever even feel romantically attracted to anyone in the first place, more comfortable with having friends than significant others. Keith didn't understand it at first, but he knew she didn't have a soulmate and that she was always smiling, more happy to visit with friends than go on a useless date.

His father, however, Keith had never met. All he knew is that he had a soulmate - obviously not Keith's mother - and that when his parents had known each other, he hadn't yet met his soulmate.

Keith did know he was the result of a one night stand. An accident, yes, but he was far from unwanted - when his mother found out she was pregnant, she was ecstatic. She'd always wanted children, but never found the right time. Or the right opportunity. Keith doubted his father even knew he existed.

But he grew up without him, instead having his mother's friends doting on him and taking care of him. Which wasn't outside the norm, but their children would always ask where his father was.

Keith learned at a young age that he had a short temper.

-x-

It was one such day that Keith was at his mother's friend's house that a police officer came knocking. She was his mother's emergency contact, and according to the officer, his mother wouldn't be coming home that night. Not then, or ever.

He spent the night there, not fully understanding why he had to, why his mother couldn't pick up, why he couldn't go home. All Keith had been told is that she was gone. But gone could mean she'd left, could mean she'd disappeared - it didn't have to mean dead.

The next day, a social worker picked him up, and after discovering that he had no known living relatives, he was placed in the foster system. His quick temper and recklessness meant he was often moved, almost always before he got attached to anyone else there.  
Eventually he stopped trying to get attached at while; why bother when he'd just go right back to where he started?

He ended up enrolling at the Garrison after a suggestion from the one person he'd ever had a chance to befriend at one of the houses. Keith excelled quickly at piloting, following in the footsteps of Shiro. It wasn't easy, not at all, not when Shiro was due to be leaving on the Kerberos mission, but Keith cherished the moments when he got to speak with the older boy.

Of course, when the Kerberos mission was declared missing, it wasn't exactly unexpected that Keith snapped and was soon expelled, destroying any chance or hope he'd had of finding Shiro. At least, until the day the alien spacecraft crash landed and it turned out to be Shiro.

So excuse Keith for missing the fact that the first words the cargo pilot - Lance, he had to remind himself - said to him were the very same written on his side.

It wasn't like Lance stopped and said anything either, instead declaring them rivals and refusing to let Keith rescue Shiro on his own.

Which, despite his own mode of transportation being barely able to carry himself, Shiro, and Lance as well as carry Lance's two friends, turned out to be at the very least not a terrible thing.

Considering they did end up finding the blue lion. Only to find an alien warcraft headed for earth. Pros and cons, Keith had to keep reminding himself. Eventually everything would have to balance itself out. Pros and cons.

But Keith wasn't optimistic by nature, and despite having the one true friend he'd ever had back, he didn't exactly see a way this could get better.

But. Eventually the universe would have to stop taking and start giving.

-x-

Those words became Keith's mantra as he pushed himself through training. He didn't miss earth in the way any of the other paladins did. Because what was there for him to miss? A small shack in a desert?

Yes, it had been his, but even after spending a year there he couldn't have considered it a home, not like the small apartment he'd lived in with his mom.

All he had to look forward to on earth was meeting his soulmate, but all things considered, he wasn't sure he even wanted one. After all, his mom had been perfectly content without one. And Pidge had loudly claimed one night, when the subject had turned to soulmates, that they didn't have a mark.

It wasn't like Keith wanted a relationship. He'd never felt any sort of inclination like that for someone. Sometimes he wished he didn't have a mark, but he also reasoned, maybe this was the universe trying to give him something back. Even if he didn't want it.

Didn't want it - and more, seeing that according to the mark, his soulmate didn't like him, and that was before they would even begin to get to know each other. Who started a relationship with "Nope. No, you- no, no, no."? Whoever it was, Keith wasn't looking forward to meeting them.

More often than not, he pushed the words out of his mind, trying to forget they were even there, but he'd always inevitably catch himself looking at them in the mirror. In the end, he'd always tear his gaze away, throwing on a shirt to cover the words, or marching to shower to clean himself, and inevitably, he'd go on with his life.

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually gonna quickly become it's own little verse, and well. More will be coming - I honestly have so many ideas for this au and I'm just so! *screams*
> 
> [My tumblr.](http://kaze.cf/)


End file.
